


Neither Here Nor There

by Fluffyllama (Llama)



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-23
Updated: 2012-01-23
Packaged: 2017-10-30 00:54:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/325976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Llama/pseuds/Fluffyllama





	Neither Here Nor There

The camp is seventy-five miles and a few emergency tyre excavations out from the nearest town, so any visitor is an event. A visitor arriving on _foot_ is almost a miracle.

Xander's desperate for company that's young and at least going to mock him in a language he can understand, so he's pretty sure the University of Sunnydale t-shirt he glimpses among the throng is a hallucination.

When Oz steps sideways from the crowd and says "Hi", he wishes it had been.

 

Following Oz up the dunes, Xander can see glimpses of bare skin where the t-shirt is torn at the hem. It's red, faded, and obviously the worse for days or weeks of wear, but that's neither here nor there.

If it was, say, a 'University of Chicago' t-shirt he was staring at, he'd know what to do. He'd let his hand linger in the lean fingers that pull him up the rock face, let his eyes travel up to meet serious green ones, narrowed from squinting against the sun's final glow. Maybe, if he found what he was looking for there, he'd follow up with his fingers burrowing under the ragged edge of cloth, smoothing their way up cool skin, pressing the awkward shape of those shoulder blades into the mould of his palm.

Instead he lets go, before he forgets and does it anyway.

"Sadar said the best view of the sunset is from here, right?"

After three weeks Xander's still not sure which one Sadar is. Oz has been here an hour.

 

Oz hasn't slept out under the stars since he hit the desert, or so he says.

"More blankets," Xander tells him, scrutinizing Oz's bedroll, and trying to ignore that it's barely an arm's reach from his own, still spread out where he threw it down on his first evening.

Oz looks dubious, but he shrugs and collects another pile from the shelter, even though they smell of camel. He laughs at Xander, already burrowed under his comfy pile of thick blankets and rag-woven rugs, and stretches out as if to embrace more sky than he's ever seen before.

"I can see forever," he says, eyes wide, but Xander's world begins where Oz's t-shirt rides up, ribs a sharp curve above the flat horizon, and ends where his knuckles curl into the sand.

If the charcoal smudges of writing still visible on that rucked up t-shirt read, just for example, 'Trinity College, Dublin', then he'd roll over and shush him with a whisper. Not because he gives a fuck, really, but the camp is all around them, and sounds carry a long way at night here. He'd silently mesh their fingers together and bury them deep, slide a knee between thighs that would close around it. He'd search out the hidden spot on neck or throat or ear that would make Oz buck and squirm beneath his mouth; taste him over and over until he was dizzy from the sweetness of sweat and warm skin.

And Oz would see only Xander above him

 

Hours later, he wakes to a pre-heat haze blue sky and muffled snores from a mound of camel blankets. Breakfast is over by the time Oz is finished in the rough and ready shower, so Xander has nothing to do with his hands when he comes up barefoot and shirtless, dabbing away the last drops of water.

If Oz has anything to say, this would be the moment. Maybe a message from Giles (because nobody else really knows where Xander is, and that's the way he likes it), or some big announcement about someone else back Home Sweet Hole-in-the-ground. But Oz just slouches there in one of the incongruous plastic picnic chairs, and seems as comfortable with the silence as Xander is.

Perhaps, just perhaps, Oz is here simply because of him.

The red t-shirt is draped to dry over the back of a chair, inside out. Even reversed the 'Sunnydale' letters draw Xander's eye, and why doesn't Oz even seem to _own_ another t-shirt?

There are millions of t-shirts in the world, and Xander's met most of them on this trip. 'Chicago' is probably still in Cairo; another hostel, another unseasoned traveller with such heat exhaustion that he couldn't have said no if he wanted to, not that Xander would have turned down that eager mouth for anything. 'Trinity' is almost as many miles behind him in Nuweiba, one of the charmingly laid-back waiters who didn't speak English, not that it mattered. He'd slipped away in the night with a smile and Xander's complimentary British Airways pen as a trophy.

"I could lend you another t-shirt," he says finally, and Oz doesn't argue. He digs out a plain green one that makes him think of Oz's eyes, and when he returns one of the women is shearing the red one into strips for weaving. The camels will look good in it.

Oz wriggles into the green shirt, and it's barely on his back before it looks like it was his all along. Perhaps it had just been hitching a ride in Xander's pack while it searched for its rightful owner. He rather likes that idea.

"If you wanted to explore a bit, we can take a jeep," Xander says, even if his sense of direction is a bit fuzzy out here. "Plenty of interesting places within a day's drive or so."

"Interesting places with more sand and rocks, right?" Oz smiles, but there's no mockery in it; Xander hears the 'God, yes', and the 'thank you', and the sigh of relief that's hidden under the words.

And Xander knows he's going to say yes, just as he knows he'll be piling both their bedrolls into the back seat of the jeep. And that maybe, if he doesn't find some way to screw this up, they won't be setting them up at arm's length tonight.


End file.
